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Tonight a guy walks into my family's convenience store to buy a pack of cigarettes. I know him from my days growing up here. Him and his younger brother used to give me a hard time, they were real bullies, racist types who encouraged others to pick on me and even to turn violent against me. I hated him, and his family, for taking a part of my childhood.

He was unusually friendly tonight, smiling at me and cracking shitty jokes that I smiled politely at but didn't really respond to. He counted his money with his gimp hand, which was partially blown in half (taking several fingers with it) by fireworks that blew up in his hand a few years ago. I gave him his smokes and change, said thanks, and went about my business.

Before leaving, he stops, hesitates for a moment, and turns around to ask me if there are any job openings at the store. While I had heard him correctly, it's almost as if the words didn't register in my mind, so I asked him to repeat himself. He asks again, 'you wouldn't happen to have any jobs available, would you?'

I explain that we're sufficiently staffed at the moment, that with my sister and I around for the summer that we wouldn't be needing anyone else to fill in the hours, which were sparse enough as is. I told him to ask again in the fall, when I'd return to Montreal and my sister to university. He said that it was okay, but that he needed something now because he was just left by his wife. He said thanks anyways, and walked out.

Memories of him being a jackass flashed around in my head, and through these a clearer picture began to form. When he had just graduated highschool, his parents broke up in a massive way, leaving a fractured home for his younger siblings to grow up in. Sometime in his life he experienced his hand being blown apart by an explosive. He had amounted to very little, and his marriage was falling apart. And now, he had to come asking for a job from the local nigger he used to make fun of and claim superiority over throughout his life. I'm half white and brown, btw, not black, but to people in this part of the world, if you're not white then you're a chink or a nigger.

It didn't feel good. I should have enjoyed it, but I didn't. While I don't feel bad for him, not in the slightest, I don't feel like any kind of justice was served, or that karma had given him his comeuppance. If the universe is truly neutral towards what is right and wrong, then this was just the way that life played out for someone who did a lot of harm to people in his time. He could have been rich, he could have been powerful, he could have kept the use of both of his hands. But it didn't turn out that way. Karma had nothing to do with it, there was no justice.

What occurred to me is that I'm not at all connected to this place anymore, this village where I grew up, not even to the pain and harsh memories that stayed with me for years. I've become my own person, capable of, at least on some level, sympathizing even with the scum of the universe that tormented my childhood, and to forget about the painful memories that followed me well into my twenties, as echoes from the past.

I just wanted to share this, because I thought it was interesting.

TL;DR: A bully from my childhood who used to attack me and incite others to do so came into my store and asked me for a job. Life's like that.

Some context. I was the fat kid in my youth, I still retain some weight but years of football kinda made it more of a muscle bulk than the butterball I used to be. When I was in jr high there was this kid named brendan who was huge. Could bench at least twice what any of the rest of us could and was rumored to have had sex with a special needs girl. Looking back I think he had been held back a year or two.

He used to bully me and my mishmash group of misfit friends, grabbing our nuts or beating us up. I remember he stole my crutches when I broke my ankle. Well I was always non-confrontational, but one day my friend harry, a japanese immigrant who didnt speak much english, was running on the track with me during PE. Brendan ran up and grabbed him by the neck and threw him to the ground. He kept running but when I helped harry up I saw that the skin of his leg had been pretty much shorn off and was bleeding. This pissed me off and knowing that brendan was a faster runner than the both of us, I knew he would lap us on the track. He did as I predicted and laughed as he passed. When he did I picked up a rock about the size of my palm an hucked it at his head. It just barely missed but skimmed his ear. Brendan lost his shit and started yelling at me and harry and when I ignored him he threw me to the ground. I fought like a pussy and dug into his stomach with my nails and bit him on the neck. My friend isaac saw what was happening and pulled him off of me and by that point the teacher saw what happened and sent harry and I to the nurses and brendan to the principal. I never saw him alive again, he was expelled after that.

I held a deep hatred for him and the things he did to me back in jr high but took solace in the fact that I was able to get one good shot in.

Fast forward a couple years, in my sophmore year of highschool. i liked to read the comic pages of the newspaper in the morning and saw a headline, "local area teen killed in motorcycle accident." I read deeper and my jaw dropped when I read "brendan shanks, 16 killed in motorcycle accident." I read on and saw that he had taken his fathers motorcycle and was speeding along a residential road at about 80 miles an hour when a car didnt see him and pulled out. He plowed into the side and with no safety gear or helmet to speak of, died almost immediately. The article recapped how difficult his life had become, getting expelled from the local high school and going in and out of rehab for heroin or some other illicit opiate. I looked at the picture and amidst the debris that was now the bike, I saw in the middle a lone oversized skate shoe, the kind he had worn back in highschool. I let out a breath and that was that. I no longer hold any hatred for the kid, he got more than any petty revenge fight could have.

TLDR: Kid who bullied me in jr high got killed in a motorcycle accident in highschool.

Kind of a short story. Kid I met in sixth grade became that kind of "is your friend but is really secretly your bully" type with me. I knew he was going to fail sixth grade (the first grade in my school system that you could really actually "fail" and get held back), so he did. I saw him a couple of times in the hall after that but I haven't really heard from him since.

He used to talk about how he wouldn't mind being in jail at all, because you get lots of cole slaw there and he likes cole slaw. Hopefully his wish came true.

When I was 8 my parents moved us out of our home town to a place with some room, couple of fields that type of thing, not more than ten minutes out of town but because of the district boundaries I had to switch to a new school. The new school was about 1/8 the size of my previous school and all the other kids had been going to school since grade 1 or something together (hell they could of been friends before starting school for all I know) and here is the new kid in grade 3 with them and they didn't like me.. for whatever reason. It started harmlessly enough but over the next 2 years thing escalated quickly from the random name calling, a couple of pushy shovey matches to rocks being thrown at a bus stop.

My parents had always told me fighting is not the answer and I stuck to that while keeping my mouth shut about the bullying, until my little sister got hit in the face with a rock and had her forehead cut open. Everything came out after that incident and the teachers? Didn't do a fucking thing. my father finally had had enough and told me the next time someone fucked with me I was to fight back, no matter what. So that started a 2 year war with me going home at least once a week suspended for fighting with someone, I got knocked around a bit at first but quickly learned I had a natural ability for fighting. Things got worse, instead of fighting one on one it would be three or four of them. Once I got choked out from behind so bad I had bruises around my neck and I had basically lost consciousness when a parent finally saw and broke it all up. Two kids got a talking to from the cops and nothing more was done, It took actual death threats from one of the kids that was bothering me the most on my parents answering machine to have him expelled from school. Once Douchebag got expelled things calmed down.

Fast forward 3 or 4 years... we are in high school, douchebag from before basically is a burnout first year doesn't do much, gets suspended, doesn't show up much. I don't touch drugs, do my homework and play sports (hockey, football, rugby) the odd time he has harassed me but nothing too major I shrug it off, I'm coming into my own in high school, good group of friends ect. To this day I don't know what the fuck possessed him to do this but myself and a few friends were outside at a party our senior year and I am looking at my friend talking and he shouts watch out and I instinctively try to duck and luckily bring my shoulders up a bit, caught a baseball bat to the shoulder, which jumped up and smashed me in side of the face on a glancing blow. I went down to one knee, majorly rattled but still mostly with it and turned around too find douchebag holding a bat and looking at me like "how the fuck are you even still conscious?". At this point, I fucking lose my shit, came off the floor with a righteous upper cut that knocked him on his ass and then jumped on him and rained down I'm told upwards to 40-50 punches while he feebly tried to block. Finally some people who came to their sense hauled me off him.

The final result was interesting, I ended up with a very nasty bruise on the side my face and shoulder, hurt like fucking hell. Went for X-rays nothing was broken ect luckily. Dbag on the other hand ended up with a broken nose, lost 3 teeth, fractured jaw and countless cuts, two HUGE black eyes and a ruptured the blood packages on the side of his eyes. The cops never got involved and that was the last time he ever, well anyone actually, ever fucked with me in high school.

Fast forward a couple of more years(8 more like it) , last time I had heard dbag was hooked on crack, selling it and sold 5 kg to an undercover cop and is in prison for 5-10 years. Karma is a GREAT.

HOLY WALL OF TEXT.

So I get what the OP is saying, but to me, it felt good to know that a scumbag like that wasn't hurting anyone innocent anymore!

TL;DR Children are terrible, mean, nasty beings, bullying ruined a good 5 years of my life, things turned out way better than I ever expected in my life! =)

I befriended a larger red headed girl when I was in grade 3 or 4. She was new to the school, everyone had their own friends and no one accepted her. I didn't have many friends so I gladly accepted her. We became best friends. Fast forward to middle school. She was still large but got boobs and wore makeup, so she became popular. I was still a way too tall and too thin awkward girl with a lisp. Everyone made fun of me and she joined in so she could be cool. It got worse and worse until she started instigating it, would circle beat me with other girls and egg my house. Fast forward again to highschool. I filled out a bit and got better friends. About half way through grade 11 people started realizing how mean and fake she had become and turning on her. She was crying in the hall one day and I went up to her, asked if she was ok and offered my phone to her if she needed to call her mom. She transferred schools for grade 12 because she was being bullied. Funny thing is, I still feel bad for her. Bullying sucks.
TL;DR bully was shitty, eventually became bullied.

This dick who used to torture the shit out of me when I was in 7th grade, insisted I was ugly and should kill myself, is now on OkCupid. A few weeks ago, before I got into a relationship, he asked if we went to school together and told me I was hot. He didn't recognize me, clearly, but it was delicious to know he'd been searching for months and no one was biting.

Edit: For clarity, I am not suggesting anything about my looks with the last part. I just take great delight in him being alone right now despite all the try hard and being on the actual website for months without success. I never went on a date with him, I just deleted his message.

After reading this, I tried to think of the names and faces of the kids who treated me like trash in middle school. But then I realized that I couldn't. They were awful to me simply because I was quiet and they could get away with it, but I don't remember them. Today, I have a good job, a good education, amazing friends and the knowledge that I will never let myself be someone who prays on others because the seem weak. Right now, coming to the realization that those people just don't matter anymore and knowing that I can have a great life despite them is better than any revenge.

I few years back I was the assistant manager at my karate studio. It was a slow, quiet day, when in walked Paul, my old bully from public school. I wasn't sure at first, it had been a long time, and it was hard to tell.

I didn't say anything. Paul was interested in joining the dojo, and I showed him around, discussed pricing, etc. I didn't treat him any differently than I would any other potential client.

At the end of the tour, Paul decided to join our dojo. We sat down in the office and he filled out the paperwork. When he wrote his name out on the application, I knew for sure that this was, indeed, my old bully. The guy who used to torment me every single weekday. Who made me kneel in dog shit.

I still didn't say anything until after pre-paid me for an entire year's memebership. As I walked him to the door, I smiled.

"I'm really looking forward to training with you." I smiled.

"Thanks, me too," Paul said.

"You don't recognize me, do you?"

"No, should I?"

"Yes. We went to school together, Grade 3 through 8. You bullied me every day, and made my life miserable. Can't wait to see you in class."

Paul went white, and walked out without another word. And never walked back in. He willingly threw away a year's membership payment, almost $500, rather than have to be in the same class with me.

EDIT: There have been some questions that I'd like to answer here.

I didn't say "I'm looking forward to training with you" with any odd voices or Clockwork Orange-like connotations. It was said normally, with a smile.

Someone suggested he could have put a stop payment on the check. He didn't. I was friends with the sensei, and told him everything that happened when he came back to the dojo. If the check had been cancelled, I would have known. Besides - and perhaps some of the more fiscally savvy redditors can help me here - there are legal complications to cancelling a check when you have signed a contract.

Some say I wanted to beat on Paul. Others say I just wanted to see him squirm. I admit that yes, I did want to beat on him, but I would not have. I had a position of responsibility, and I took that responsibility seriously. But yes, I did want to see him squirm. I didn't expect him to quit though. I figured there would be one or two awkward classes where he knew I was there and was nervous, but eventually we would spar together and I had planned to be as careful and respectful with Paul as I was with any other student.
But yes, my critics are correct. I could have handled that in a more mature fashion. I could have sat down with Paul and had a frank and open discussion about bullying, and how it wasn't allowed at our club. I did not do this. I'm not apologizing for this. The moment was extremely cathartic for me, and literally erased years and years of hurtful, painful memories that had been with me for over a decade.
If Paul had come to classes, he would have realized that he wasn't in any danger. Instead, he chose to throw away his $500 and never come back, which is the cowardly way out. As we are taught, bullies are all secretly cowards at heart.

I love this story - you were professional and did nothing untoward. However, because he was a dick he would have assumed you would act like he would in that situation. His own dickishness resulted in him screwing himself out of the $500.

My mom treats me worse than my younger brothers, and it eventually always bites her in the ass. My favorite is the time she saw it coming.

See, when we were teens, my brothers were always allowed to borrow my mother's car, but I wasn't. My grandmother even warned my mother that she would need me one day and I'd tell her no. Mom blew her off because why would she need me, and it's not in my nature to say no.

Fast forward a few years later when I have a car and my mom gets into an accident that leaves her temporarily car-less. Mom never asked to borrow my car even though she wanted to because she knew I had every right to say no, and she admitted it and apologized because she screwed herself over not being nicer to me as a teen.

The thing is, it's not in my nature to say no. If she had asked, I would have said yes. Her guilt was the karma.

Most properties like that don't go very high at all. I bought a house on auction that was foreclosed on just for the tax dollars they never paid on it, 500$. I found out later that the house belonged to a mother of 4, whose husband had been killed by a drunk driver a few years prior on his way to work. I tracked down that woman, signed the deed over to her, and told her everything was taken care of. She now has a killer job, and brings me and my wife fresh food all the time :p It is amazing the feelings you get when something like that happens to you.

There was a kid at my secondary school who used to mercilessly bully the kids in Learning Support.

Being a small school, they converted the old caretakers house into a safe environment for the people with learning difficulties to take certain lessons and receive support. It allowed a sorta half mainstream half specialist school environment for them.

Anyways this guy dropped out of school at 16 after 5 or so years of smoking around the back of this house and bullying the kids in LS.

3 years go by and he ends up being shot in the head by a modified air rifle. He now has some brain damage, memory and dexterity issues... and the only place he can retake GCSE's is the same old house he spent years prowling outside to bully disabled kids.

Well, when a student dies, they're not gonna say that he was a piece of shit that deserved to die, but they all thought it. Maybe not death, but something that doesn't play in his favor. It's the social norms that come into play.

A guy at my school died almost 2 years ago in a car crash. I didn't know him, but the school had a memorial ceremony for him. I overheard 2 guys talking about what a dick he was the day after, and at the time thought it to be quite rude, but I suppose death doesn't change what kind of person you are.

I've made it a point that if I am ever to die suddenly and unexpectedly (or hell, even if they see it coming), my friends and family must be completely honest in eulogizing me and not make me out as something I wasn't. I'd say I'm overall a pretty decent guy, but I can be kind of an asshole too. Acknowledge that and embrace it as the whole package of my personality. To leave that part out would be the real dishonor to my memory. You're not allowed to pick and choose just the good parts. Remember me as I was, not as you wanted me to be. I'm not perfect so don't pretend I was just because I died.

I don't understand where the idea that we should respect the dead comes from. Sure if they were a respectable person you can respect them. But I'd be the first to spit on a downright bad persons corpse.

In some sense, I agree with you. But on the other hand, we "respect the dead" not for the dead, but for the loved ones they left behind. A shitty person can still have decent loved ones, and it is those we are respecting.

That being said, I don't find a personal moral issue with hating dead assholes.

Exactly. Hate on them, but don't bring it up. If you don't have anything nice to say and all that.

It boils down to -- the kid's got a mother somewhere, and a father, and a best fried, probably, and they're all suffering a huge loss. They don't need to hear horrible things about the person they loved while they're already mourning.

Actually this is one of my biggest peeves and why I choose not to go to funerals for people I don't like. My grandmother and grandfather on my father's side didn't believe I was my father's son (though I am the spitting image of him) and treated me like garbage. My "grandmother" use to push me down so often my mother almost killed her once. Total cuntsack. When I went to the funeral because I was forced to go everybody spoke about her like she was a saint instead of the bitch she was. I got my ass handed to me by my uncle and father when I thanked cancer for the gift it gave me. I wasn't allowed to go to my grandfather's funeral.

I had a fucking douchebag in my school. He was the son of a famous reporter and maybe a famous singer. He was well connected. He was a complete tool and a bully, white guy with dreadlocks. He and his crew would constantly jump on outnumber normal students. After school he became famous because like I said, he was connected.

He had a rap CD named "Jaccuzi" dissing on this Greek singer who was not even gangsta. Anyways he died from a "heart attack" whih translates to overdose. All the media talked about an aspiring young musician and what a pitty it was. Oh, the fucks that I give.

I had two personal interactions with him. Once when he and his people were about to beat me up but thankfully something happened and they had to go and one other time where he was chasing me till we were alone in an empty class room. I bith slapped him and run away.

By the way If any Greeks are reading this, his name was Andy. Look at this tool.

TL:DR Became slightly famous, overdosed.

update: Yes, his mother was an actress. She died. It is important to note that she died months before him and not before he became a bully gangsta thug.

Family karma here...when I was about 8 and my brother was 11, he got in trouble for punching a kid in the face on the school bus (my brother claims he was defending someone else...I don't really remember it all that clearly). My brother paid the price, was banned from the bus for a while, faced repercussions at school, and my Mom made him apologize to the kid he punched in person. A couple of months after the incident, the mother of the kid he punched decided to flip the crazy switch and sued my parents for mental anguish, claiming that her son now had crippling emotional problems stemming from the incident. She showed up at board meetings, tried to get my brother expelled, painted a picture of my family as shady and my brother as a delinquent and violent.

My parents ended up escaping the legal battle with a little bit of dignity intact, but feeling ostracized in our community of 90 people.

Fast forward...I'm now 27, my brother is 30. My Mom sends a newspaper clipping to him in the mail...it's the indictment of the crazy Mom from our childhood. Come to find out, she had been embezzling money from her employer for 5 years...totaling more than $50,000. May have taken two decades, but she finally got what was meant for her.

Growing up with racism definitely isn't the easiest thing in the world. Aside from being bullied yourself you have to deal with the fact that your siblings or your friends have to deal with the same shit. You dont deserve it, nobody deserves it, but it exists.

I imagine seeing that bully as a complete wreck was one of the greatest moments of your life. Unfortunately not everyone gets to see their childhood tormentors later down the line. I'll tell you this though, I felt fucking amazing when I stood up to my bully in Grade 9 of highschool. How did I do it? I don't remember to be perfectly honest. All I remember was a snarky racist remark.

"Shut up, you're (Insert Background), you dont have the right to speak"

Thats when I lost it, I mostly remember grabbing him by the shirt and then throwing him against a wall. Once he was pinned against the wall I alternated between punching his face in and and making sure he stayed against the fucking wall. Details are mostly lost to me, but I definitely remember winning that fight.

I was suspended for the rest of the day, he was suspended for 3 days due to the racist nature of his remark. Possibly one of the greatest turning points of my life.

True story. I got bullied for roughly seven years straight daily when I was in secondary school (second level education in the UK/Ireland, taken from the ages 11-18). I had kids tell me I should die, I had my ass beat and I was emotionally destroyed by everyone who treated me like the most useless, void piece of crap. I didn't feel like I should exist. I sat at home contemplating just ending it a lot.

I always loved art, drawing and writing. During my adolescence I retreated to the internet. I didn't want to go to clubs where those people were, yet could still talk to people. I started posting animated Flash cartoons and comics to other people who were like me for critique. Due to the bullying directed at me, I developed a rather sad sensibility towards life and an ability to quickly come back verbally at anyone who wanted to give me abuse. It was a defense mechanism for sure, but the tone shown through in the animations and comics that I drew. Through all that, I met friends and eventual co-workers.

I now draw a cartoon called Cyanide & Happiness.

The local papers write about me. That school held an assembly in my honor once recently (I was told this by a friend who now works there). I live overseas and Jonathan Ross comes to hang out with me at Comic-Con every year, where again pictures of us appear in the local paper. My former bullies know all about this. The particularly bad ones now either avoid me in bars now or try to be my best mate, and I walk around my home town beaming.

There was one kid in particular who would stand behind me in assembly every morning (each year -- grade to Americans -- was arranged into a line in the main hall) and headbutt me in the back of the head for a laugh with the others around me. The back of my head was severely bruised for months at a time, and early on it'd leave me in tears with the physical pain and lack of respect for me. I'd dread every morning. I'd hear them behind me snickering and discussing whether he should do it or not. I couldn't turn around to stop them, because then I'd get yelled at by teachers for not paying attention to the front. I'd have my hand at the back of my head to protect myself. I'd hear him say "c'mon Dave, put your hand down. You're safe." I'd eventually relent and he'd do it anyway. They'd laugh. I'd turn around and ask him to please not do that, because my head was in so much pain from the trauma he'd dealt it before. He said okay, whilst smirking. I'd turn around, I'd hear them snickering and he'd do it. Again. This went on for around two years. That kid is now a hardcore drug addict, and doing very poorly in life.

Feels good man. Thank you, internet.

Sidenote (sorry I keep editing this, but more and more is coming back to me as I read your comments): I developed a huge stutter 2-3 years in to the bullying because I was so nervous at presenting myself to these people in front of class. They eventually noticed and made fun of that, and it became a recurring loop. I'd dread every class that would potentially make me 'read out aloud' for fear of the humiliation. English lit was the worst, followed by French and Religious Education. The teacher in English lit would go around each person row by row in the room, making us read out large portions of whatever we were studying. As it neared me I would nearly faint with fear. I'd be sweating. I'd lose lots of sleep over this over the years. The worst feeling in the world was to be made to stand up and be made an example of in front of people that actively hate you under what felt like the guise of 'education.' It felt like a punishment ritual. I'd tell the headmaster, but he'd tell me I had to do it to 'promote character-building skills.' It took me years to get over this.

Only over the past two years have I been able to speak in front of groups of people again- thanks ONLY to the generosity of our fans, and how warmly they treat us both online and IRL. All I can say is, fucking thank you. This year I sat in front of a crowd of people and spoke at Chicago Comic Con (C2E2). There's a youtube video of it all floating around somewhere. I think I did pretty good. Thanks for helping me rebuild myself, internet.

Epilogue: A few years ago, after C&H started taking off and I was starting to earn a living from it, one of the former school bullies came up to me in a bar and said mockingly "still drawing stick figures for a living?" I (dunno why, just felt like it) retorted with "I could buy you." He walked away in silence. I realize this sounds very obnoxious, and I WAS exaggerating (naturally), but since we were both 20 years old and I was doing pretty damn well for our age (better than he), I felt pretty justified. That one proper, direct moment of "in your fucking face, shithead" was worth it.

Edit: Feels cathartic putting this here, actually. Never really talked about it to anyone. Thanks guys. I'd also like to note I got laughed at a lot for using the internet a lot. It was the late 90s and these people would see it as nerdish and for 'losers', or whatever. Look where it got me. God bless the internet.

TLDR: Bullied at school, wanted to kill myself, somehow used how it shaped me for good and now draw a hugely popular online comic for a living, thanks to kind people like you. Basically, fuck bullies.

I don't think you have any idea how you've made me feel. i was worried that i would offend you. you have made me very happy, and i think this is a memory that i'm going to keep for a long time. thank you, you are a great human.

Dubliner here. As near as I can remember, you're from the north; I've been following C&H for a very long time, and I think Secondary School is the same on all parts of the island.

I can understand how your verbal riposte was seen through your work. I took to writing when dealing with bullying through the years and it ended up being a defining activity of who I am. I think you've made a hell of a life for yourself.

Oh holy fuck, seriously. If I of all people can do it, you certainly can. Whoever's bullying you now, fuck them, they won't matter in your life in a few years. Just treat it like a big shitty wave that you're swimming against, and once you're past that you'll be in a nice calm ocean. By then you'll also be super fucking pro at swimming because you'll be mega-buff from paddling against that stupid asshole tidal wave for so long.

A guy I went to high-school with "friended" me on Facebook. He was caught stealing from my house once back then, bragging about it to mutual friends (whom he thought would not tell me). After the incident we never spoke, although we had the same circle of friends, I kept my distance, he kept his.

Flash forward 20 years to now and we were "friends" on Facebook. I have a pretty cool job in the music industry, good money and I travel the world. I usually add these former "friends" just so they can see my life turned out pretty awesome while most of them are in our old home town working shit jobs...anyway.

He updated his status saying that he was devastated that someone stole something from his son and karma this, blah blah blah. Amongst all the posts from his friends being sorry for him, I simply wrote something like "Yeah, its really terrible when someone steals from you eh? That must really suck. Karma does have its way of evening things out though." I immediately started getting PMs from mutual friends congratulating me, who remembered the incident in school. He "un-friended" me after that to my extreme pleasure.

My college roommate secretly slept with my boyfriend while I was at class for a year (I routinely took more than a full course load and was in math/science classes or study groups every morning). One day I walked in on them screwing when class was cancelled. Moved out. More angry at her than heartbroken. Lost most of my friends through the breakup.

Fast forward 5 years later: those 2 throw a crazy expensive engagement party at the guy's parents' beach house (attended by some still-mutual friends). She caught him boning one of the waitresses for the catering company in a bathroom before the toasts. They still got married.

Like OP, I feel a little bad for her despite the karma balance. She feels like she can't do better than being with a cheater. He is rich, though.

When I was in 7th grade, two 8th grade girls always made fun of me, and were generally really mean to me.

One of them moved away, and i never saw her again, but When the other graduated that year (from jr high to high school), I bought her a box of chocolates. She cried her eyes out and apologized for being a jerk, and we became friends.

When I was in high school I was a small kid, I was also pretty poor, but my parents worked really hard to put me through a private school outside of our neighborhood. This was terrible on two fronts, I would be picked on at school for being poor, then picked on at my home neighborhood for being rich.

There was a small group that were particularly bad and I was a smartass, so I'd always make it worse for myself. There were a couple of dudes and their groupies.

I was working in bars for around 3 years after high school, eventually ending up in management. But we all wear the same outfits and the only give away is the tiny in-ear earpiece that supervisors, managers and security wear. One night, the douchebags and their groupies walk in. At first they don't recognize me, I'm lucky that I have changed enough since high school and have learnt how to dress myself. So they're buying drinks and generally harmless, then one of them figures out who I am but doesn't say anything (distinctive deep voice).

The girls come up to the bar leaving the boyfriends in the background watching intently. They order a long island ice tea, which is something most would be embarrassed to order at this particular bar so good on them, I love me a long island too.

Now, I'm not a dude who dwells on the past, I don't really care about people who've wronged me in high school as it was so long ago and we were "stupid kids." Most are still living with their parents (eight years after graduating) and jerking it to ex-classmates on facebook anyway. But I was pretty satisfied when one of the girls spat the cocktail out across the bar and "accidentally" dropped the glass.

She starts asking to talk to my boss and how I shouldn't be working there blah blah (rich family). I mention that it is impossible to fuck up a long island and I wouldn't be manager if I didn't know how to make one. Their eyes go dull at this point, after hearing the word "manager."

Slowly, my hand goes for my ear and I whisper a single word, "security."

The look on their faces will never escape me, being dragged out of a high-class cocktail lounge when people they knew were all around them, would have to be an embarrassing experience and the looks on their faces certainly showed it. One of the boyfriends was yelling constantly at the security guard and was eventually pushed, by the face, out of the way before being grabbed by another and walked out. The remaining boyfriend separated himself from the others and hung around, at this point I don't care about him, I'll head back and let him know he has to leave in a second.

I'm at the entrance to the bar ensuring that the women and other irate boyfriend don't get back in. By this stage the irate boyfriend is asking security guards and myself to fight him. I'm getting bored and decide to head back in, security know what they're doing and I turn around just in time to duck and miss a fist from the other boyfriend, I quickly move behind him, drop my foot into the back of his knee sending him down as the security guards jump on him and put him in a lock.

They are then banned for life from one of the classiest lounges around and are thoroughly embarrassed. The boyfriend that tried to king hit me got to spend the night in a lock-up. (He later contacted me through facebook and apologized for that night, but also for how he'd treated me in high school. Apparently spending the night in a lock up is something he'd never done before and it gave him a bit of a wake-up call)

This isn't the only Karma I've had, at the same bar I also had something similar to the OP's story happen. But he got hired and it turned out he had grown into a pretty chill guy, we are still friends.

I once got punched in the pregnant stomach by my ex-fiance (not the father of my baby). I told him that I hope he got hit by a car. Three days later I found out that he gotten hit by a truck while riding his bicycle to a friend's house. He survived but had to have extensive surgery to correct his broken bones and save his life. He was uninsured so now he's stuck with crippling hospital debt from being in ICU and having surgery. I did not have to wait very long for that one.

Edit: I should note that he punched me hard enough to where I was bleeding. I had to go to the hospital. Cops were called, but they chalked it up as "suspicious activity", but he now has some sort of record in the shape of a police report against him.

Here's an example of where I did. From the ages of 7 to 12 I was molested by a guy in his fifties that lived with his mom. He used to hang out with my dad and pay him to cook him food. This guy was awful. I was forced on several occasions to suck his Dick and at the age of 12 he tried to rape me (he could not fit it in and my parents came home so he stopped). He went to jail later that year.

He stayed in prison for five years. He got out of jail and moved back in with his mom. He saved up to buy a house and was finally able to buy one in a nice community. Someone in his neighborhood home owner's association found out that he was on the sex offender's registry for child molestation. The HOA rallied and was able to get him evicted. He comes crawling back to my family's home and asks if he can rent the room I had just moved out of. I was visiting at the time and got to see the whole pathetic scene. He apologized for molesting me and said he only did it because he was lonely. He then proceeded to beg my father to allow him to rent my room. My father said no and kicked him out of the house. He is now homeless and spends his time going from hotel room to hotel room and homeless shelters too. I waited 10 years for this day. Oh, I also found out he was engaged. When his fiance found out about his past she dumped him in a quick second.

I have a very similar story. A girl used to bully me and my brother in elementary and middle school. I HATED her. Well, time has passed and I now co-own a fairly successful, up and coming restaurant/cafe/wine bar. About this time last year, this same girl comes into my place after about 10 years of not seeing each other, recognizes me, strikes up a friendly conversation (it seemed she had forgotten all about the torment, but I hadn't). She then tells me that she has fallen on hard times and needs a job. NOPE!

In retrospect though, I should have hired and made her life a living hell. But whatever, seeing her face when I said no was incredible. That's what you get for spreading that rumor that me and my twin brother were in an incestuous relationship, bitch.

A boy at school, [Name redacted due to fellow redditor now knows me/worked it out], was an absolute asshole to me and my group of friends. I was raised as a fairly introverted kid, and thus gravitated to people of a like mind. He could basically smell the pacifism on us and exploited it to no end. Kicked the crap outta my friends and I every chance he got, humiliated us in front of the class, basically assigned us to the lowest social rungs for most of our schooling year. The relentless intimidation and thuggery reduced me to start hiding in my shell. I would prefer to read in the library than play or eat during lunch, lest his roaming bring us into contact again. Without a word of a lie, I read over 300 novels by the time I had finished school, and had sparked a life-long obsession with literature.

My own bio-father was a bully and violent, and it burned into me a deep-seated hatred of anyone who resorts to preying upon the weak. Daily I would fantasise about murdering him, or at least crippling him so he could know what it is like to be helpless. It is wrong, I know, but until you are in that situation, you never know. Leaving school and going to uni lead me to be a much more confident person, and slowly learnt that you can be confrontational without someone being violent to you.

Fast forward to some 8 years after school. One Friday afternoon he walked into my place of business looking for something we sell, and (due to the nature of our business) revealed that since leaving school, he had been caught stealing a car, gone to juvenile prison (due to age), got busted for drug possession, more convictions etc and been living at no fixed address. (I am in Australia, so the courts can be pretty weak and forgiving sometimes. Not that I care in this case. That he got some punishment is enough for me). We were his last chance for this particular product.

Before you judge too quickly, we had been at a fairly expensive private school, so he wasn’t exactly a down-on-his luck hobo to begin with - he had just never once stopped making bad decisions despite the opportunities given to him.

I projected an outwardly professional demeanour, (internally gladly and gleefully) and denied him service, and sent him dejectedly on his way. (I was required by policy, and had no actual authority over the choice, but it still felt good)

The best part? He didn’t recognise me. He looked at the man serving him, and only saw a man. I had grown and changed so much, and he had stayed exactly the same.

Looking back, it may be bad karma for me to take such pleasure in this. However, it gives me hope that sometimes the bad guy loses in the films AND in real life. I suffered a fucked up school/social life for 8 years because of him, and do not regret feeling some schadenfreude at his demise.

TL;DR – Bully at school ended up as a criminal with no future, whereas I survived and moved on to a bigger and better life.

Mine is also pretty harsh and I wasn't able to draw any pleasure from it, nor was I able to connect with the life prior to the situation.

Short version.
I'm living with a woman and working two jobs (one full time and the other nearly full time) to put her through flight school so she can get her career started and I can then return to school.

-First job as a pilot after 5 months she meets an aircraft mechanic.
-Has an affair and tells me she's leaving.
-Me "fuck you I wanted out way before you, good riddance"
-She leaves and gets knocked up within 4 months (I never wanted children and didn't know she did)

She contacts me through a mutual friend. Says she really would love to see me and catch up.

-I agree to dinner. She arrives 45 minutes late after already eating at her sisters home.
-She's super anxious and scattered which is so unlike her character.
-Turns out her new man has dumped her and the child.
-Post-pregnancy she gained weight and after 3 years decided to lose it.
-Husband says "who are you losing weight for?"
-She says "no-one I gained weight during the pregnancy and I feel fat. Why would you say that?"
-His reply "How did we meet?"
-He leaves her and says you take the child and nothing or I'll fight you for custody. (he owns a company and makes a substantial income)

So I meet up with her and she is a wreck. Unfocused, living in her sister's basement. Not flying, she works with her mother at a minimum wage job she did in high school. Basically she is back at 17 but with a child and declaring bankruptcy.

I only agreed to the dinner so I could gloat about how happy I was and how well my life was going without her.
I have a few drinks with her and say I've got an early morning and say I have to leave. She says she never stopped thinking about me and how it felt to be loved the way I loved her.

I told her that's nice and I'm sorry things turned out the way they did.

I had nothing. I was beat, I wanted to gloat and brag and rub shit all in her face for the way I sacrificed my life and all my effort for the life we were supposed to have. There were years of resentment and anger which simply melted away all I had for her was pity. She wanted to come home with me and I said not tonight.
A few weeks later she called me saying she was randomly in my neighbourhood "with a bottle of wine". I told her to stop contacting me and have a good life.

All the hate and loathing I had for her and the things she had done seemed insignificant to the place she was in. I moved on and grew and experienced life and she basically went backward. All the wind was out of my sails I badly wanted to gloat and puff my chest out.

All I realized was I had no connection to my life from before and her leaving was the best thing that had happened to me in years. Seeing her so defeated and ruined didn't make me pleased I simply wanted to forget and leave the past where it was. Which sadly she couldn't do.
Karma bit her on the ass so badly there was no room for anyone else to enjoy the way things turned out.

This didn't happen to me but it happened to my uncle and I still think it's fucking hilarious every time I hear it.

My uncle is a really REALLY smart guy, the kind of kid that doesn't have to try in school at all. Unfortunately, this made this one other kid, let's call him Bob, see my uncle as a target for bullying. So he got bullied from basically sixth through high school, however they parted ways and he went to UCLA and later UCLA med school.

Fast forward thirty something years, my uncles now 50 and so is his bully. He's living in the bay area when what do you know but his high school bully was the one he was seeing that day, I was told that they both recognized each other but the bully kind of blew it off and kind of acted like they were old chums in middle school/high school. Anyways Bob came in because he had a little lump on his ballsack and after an examination my uncle (did I mention he's an oncologist?) get's to tell him that he has testicular cancer. Bob apparently reacts by getting angry and saying that he's lying because of all the bullying. Uncle tells him it's for real. Bob get's a second opinion, second opinion says same thing. Bad luck Bob. To this day my uncle is still kind of ashamed of himself for finding so much joy in telling him the news.

TL;DR My uncle was bullied and eventually became a doctor and got to tell his high school bully that he had testicular cancer.

A guy in high school out of the blue pulled a random girls shirt over her head and started punching her. Later on in his life he was drafted into the NHL, made millions plus dated Elisha Cubreth. Karma doesn't exist. His name us Sean Avery.

The person that bullied me through my childhood was my step-father. Of course, it wasn't just me, it was my entire family. This man was, and still is, an utter despicable bastard of unimaginable proportions.

My mother got pregnant with me when she was 17. She dropped out of high school. A year later, she got pregnant with one of my step-sisters, to another guy.

At some point, she met my step-father and was immediately pregnant with my step-brother. So, now at age 20, my mother has had three kids with three different men. Eventually, she had two more girls to this worthless human.

We grew up poor. Like so poor that we didn't have food most of the time. My step-father was also an abusive alcoholic. His usual pattern was to go to work, come home to berate and beat the family, go out drinking all night, and then come home at 2 am deciding that the house needed to be cleaned by everybody in the house.

Not moving fast enough after being woken up at 2 am? He'd toss you down the stairs.

Fall asleep with the television on? He'd punch your sleeping face to wake you up to turn it off.

I was the oldest and the most frequent target of his abuse. He kicked me in the face with a steel toed boot when I dropped a tool he needed when he was working on the car. He broke a frying pan when he was beating me with it.

I can imagine that this sounds too horrible to be true, but I assure you that everything I describe here is what really happened.

He hated all of us. My mother and my siblings. He would frequently threaten to drive our car off the highway into ravines just to see if he could kill us all. My mother was forbidden from working, leaving the house, or even having a driver's license.

He was a welder by trade. When he came home from work, we were all expected to be there waiting for him. The kid nearest him was forced to take off his work boots for him while others were to get his bath and beer ready.

He would beat us for whatever odd reason struck him. He destroyed anything we enjoyed simply to show us he could. He beat my mother severely and cut her off from her family.

When I was in high school, I suddenly became larger than him. I went from 5' 4" and 120 lbs to 6' and 160 lbs over a summer. I was now larger than him so he kept his hands off, but the absolute evil of this man wouldn't stop. He threatened to rape my girlfriends. He threatened my friends. This was all a device he used to try to cut me off from the outside world.

My sophomore year, he had a heart attack. I thought that maybe we'd finally be rid of this waste of life, but the rotten prick pulled through.

He stopped drinking because he had no choice. The doctors said it would kill him. He didn't get any better though. He was still an absolute asshole in every way.

I graduated high school and immediately moved out of that house. I went from odd job to odd job for a while until I ultimately joined the Army. I went to basic training, Airborne school, and got assigned to Fort Bragg.

I cam home on leave once after a tour to Iraq and he decided to take me out for a drink to show his alcoholic buddies that I achieved something. While we were at the bar, he started to get a little drunk and told me "I know I beat you kids pretty bad. I think it was the right thing to do. You turned out okay."

I put down my beer, and looked him dead in the eye.

"You are an absolutely horrible human being. It's taking every ounce of control I have right now not to take you out into that parking lot and beat you like a rented mule. I am telling you right now, if I ever hear you have laid another finger on my mother or my brother or sisters, I will come back here. I will murder you. I will make you suffer unimaginable pain, then I will end you. If you have any doubt to what I am telling you, I want you to look into my eyes and think long and hard about this. I will fucking kill you."

I put down my beer, walked out of the bar, and went home.

I have not been to my home in years. I worry about what would happen if I ever saw this man again. I cannot risk it having a wife and kids.

I haven't heard anything from my family in regards to him doing anything. I made my own karma.

In 8th grade (age 13-14), this kid threw a wooden block at me, probably thinking, "Oh, let's pick on the punk girl, that'll be so hysterical!" I blacked out for a good 10-15 seconds after it clocked me in the head. When I came to, he and his friends were all on the ground laughing at how funny this was. I ended up having to go to urgent care and not participate in gym class for a few days. His mom was on the school board and had a large role in the financial decisions of the school, so the administration was afraid to punish him and did nothing. My math teacher was this kid's football coach and made him run extra while everyone else got to take a food/water break, but that was the only justice I got.

Fast forward two years: everyone is freaking out that this guy can't play football for the JV team that year. He ended up spraining his back and breaking a few ribs from a drunken escapade into the woods the week before his sophomore year started, and the concussion that he sustained from this was severe enough that a second concussion could have caused serious mental damage.

Two years isn't that long of a time, but considering there were witnesses and the kid should have been arrested and suspended at the very least, it seemed like a long time.

In middle school I knew this juggalo kid named Eric that was a pretty big dick to me. He was older and had failed a couple times, and because of his style (and the fact that he once showed to school with clown paint) he was known as Clown to most. He harassed me as often as he could, once lighting part of my hair on fire at the skating rink and pretty much stole my first girlfriend from me. He ended up getting expelled for decking an older female teacher in the face. Fast forward to my senior year of high school. I'm hanging out with some friends and a preview for the nightly news comes on. The top story that night was about a man who raped his girlfriend's two year-old daughter who later died from the injuries she sustained. Clown is now doing life without parole.

This is what I hate about the human race sometimes. Killing little innocent children. They had an entire life to live; the offender doesn't have a life, unless they consider doing acts such as this their life.

Aw man, I only just remembered this. I went to a private school for a while and didn't fit in, people generally thought I was weird and bullied me quite a lot (not sure if I was just weird (probably) or it was them being dickwads (probably that too)). One time I was walking along by where they herd all the little kids at lunchtime and one picked up a big rock and threw it right at my head. For a, what, 7-year-old kid he had a beastly throw, I had an instant lump and blacked out for a while.

Came to and everyone was laughing, the kid got told 'it's bad to throw rocks at people' and continued to throw rocks at people and probably got a nice plush life and a pony and I got sent home, at the normal time, with some aspirin and a note saying I'd taken a hit to the head and to take note if I'm dizzy or incoherent, because apparently the nurse couldn't see that I was.

Fuck you, karma. I want to know what you did to that little kid a few years down the line!

P.S. I turned out to be OK I think, but very bitter about small children getting away scot-free with things anyone above 10 can be legally prosecuted for.

I was the last stop on the bus, so there was always a lack of seats. I got on the bus and spotted one empty seat next to someone. I walked over and sat next to him.

He turned to me and said "I didn't say you could sit there." I replied "There were no other seats." I guess he didn't care, because he repeated his previous statement. I just ignored him.

Then he shouted at the top of his lungs "GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY SEAT!" I was taken aback. I couldn't believe he just shouted that on the bus at me, the situation felt surreal. I saw everyone on the bus start to look in my direction.

I froze up. I started weighing my options. I knew I couldn't take this guy in a fight, he was fucking crazy. As you should be able to tell from this situation. As I'm still pondering what to do, he shouts again "I SAID, GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY SEAT!"

Then before I can find a way out, he kicks me out of the seat. I stand up in the middle of the bus and I'm met with roaring laughter from all the other kids on the bus.

The bully stands up ready to fight, and I just walk away. Even if I was able to beat him in a 1 on 1 fight, I knew he was the type to come back the next day with 5 of his friends to beat you to a pulp.

I walked to the back of the bus and sat in the half-seat with the mentally challenged kid.

I wasn't about to let things end like that though. So, I planned for my revenge. I started catching the city bus to school, instead of the school bus to avoid further humiliation. Things blew over eventually and everyone forgot about that incident.....but I didn't.

I waited until one day, I saw that bully on the bus with a grill lighter smoking weed. Then he took the grill lighter and smacked a guy in the face with it, and he started crying. I knew this was my chance.

I created an anonymous email address and sent an email to my school officials. I told them about the bully smoking weed on the bus and smacking that kid in the face with a grill lighter. I made sure not to say anything that could give my identity away. That way, no one would know who "tattled".

The school investigated the issue and found the evidence they needed from eye witness testimonies on the bus. That bully was expelled from school and I was free to ride the bus in peace.

Tl;DR - A bully humiliated me on the bus, so I anonymously got him expelled from school.

"5 dots, Darrell, are you kidding me?! Okay, cause three dots means to be continued, four dots is a typo, but five dots means, 'woah, do not make me say what I want to say, babe, but if I did it would blow your mind.' dot. dot. dot. dot. dot.”

I had a guy that used to pick on me for no reason in high school, he was a bit bigger, older, and was a wrestler. We tussled once when I had had enough of his shit but it got broke up by teachers before it got too far. The guy just didn't like me and was relentless. Honestly he scared me.

When I was 37, I got divorced and took up muai Thai. Over the course of the next two years I got myself into ridiculously good shape. I was 5'11 and 190 lbs of hard muscle with lots of martial skills. I rented a house I owned to a single mom with the same last name as the dude that tormented me. A couple of months later I was visiting her to take care of a few maintenance issues at the house, and I walked up to the door, and he opened it. I stared at him for a full minute. He was much smaller than i remembered, in fact he was struggling with heroin and the look on his face was priceless. It was his sister that had rented from me. Well, he recognized me, knew immediately that I could easily wipe my ass with him., you could tell the look of fear, at least I could, because that dude used to scare the shit out of me all the time. He meekly held out his hand, I took it, almost crushed it, then just gave him a big bear hug and a little noogie. It was a guy's way of letting him off the hook. I think he would have rather had his ass beat.

Fuck that. I deleted all but around four people (one is my best friend and the others are worthwhile people) from my high school because, 1) why did I add them in the first place? and 2) seeing and hating their ignorant bullshit on my news feed far outweighed the pleasure I got from looking at their failure every now and then.

Don't worry, you don't have to add them. See, once their lives become dead-ends, they have nothing better to do -- so they start adding you and your other former classmates. They might even be the types to go through your friends and try to befriend some of them, since they can't leave the house because of the 20 babies they've had.

It's been six years and counting since this dumb girl from high school threatened me with text messages and then broke into my house and stole everything of monetary and sentimental value to both myself and my mother. She never saw any kind of legal repercussion or faced any consequences. I'm still waiting for her to die in a fire or lose her job or something.

I'm was one of the least popular kids in my high school by far. I was too nerdy for even the nerds to hang out with. I spent most of my time with the outcasts.

I knew it was bad but I had a crush on a football player. (Can you blame me? What nerd didn't?) I decided for once to take charge and do something for myself.

I asked him out.

He laughed in my face and told me I was too ugly for anyone to ever date. Called me "crow face" which was a lovely nickname that caught on for a long time. Because of this, I had such awful self esteem that well into my 20s, I still couldn't ask anyone out and even now still get to embarrassed sometimes. He ruined my self esteem completely.

After high school I began doing modeling gigs and cosplay events. I felt great and looked amazing.

Not too long after these shoots started popping up online, he messaged me on facebook telling me how gorgeous I looked and that he should have never said no to me at all.

I then got to calmly explain to him the years of self esteem issues I'd suffered from him and how I always pictured him humiliating me in front of our high school any time I wanted to ask someone out.

TL;DR: Crush told me I was too ugly for anyone, now I model and he's alone with a beer belly.

I had a 1.8 GPA in high school and my guidance counselor sarcastically told me "You can still potentially be successful, you'll just never be able to become a doctor or a lawyer". I went to law school 7 years later. Felt good.

When I was a lot younger, I lived in a small town, and the people there were awfully shitty. I got picked on a LOT, especially since I didn't play hockey (small town Canada, you either play hockey or you wish you were dead).

Instead, I was in Ukrainian Dancing, which wasn't as bad as it sounds. There were 8 guys and 8 girls in my group, but they ALL picked on me. One guy in particular; he would make fun of me and call me a faggot and incite others to violence towards me. I hated that guy, and I will always hate him.

A few years ago I heard that he came out of the closet, and a few months after that he got beaten severely (hospitalized) by some homophobes because he was gay.

Now, I hate homophobia, I am all for gay rights and equality, but man, there is no one on Earth more deserving and getting his ass kicked for a stupid reason than this fuck.

I'll keep this short. My brother sexually molested me when I was young. He ran away from home eventually and my family lost all contact with him. A couple of years ago I learned my other brother discovered his whereabouts and, it turns out, he broke his back in a 4 wheeling accident and can't walk.

So, I've seen people grow up and have seen the results of their lives. Generally speaking, the people who were kind, hard-working, friendly as kids all have succeeded as adults. Those that were just assholes kind of had shitty lives.

I'm 38, and I can only say I wish this was true in my case. My biggest bully was a stuck up girl in seventh and eighth grade that made it her mission in life to mock me and do her best to make me feel as small as possible, even though I was already pretty fucking tiny self esteem wise. We were incredibly poor (on welfare during the Reagan years) and I had to wear shoes that were too small for me and so tight my pinky toes actually wore holes and hung out the side, and wore fucking orange corduroy bell bottoms that my mom got at a yard sale and the like. It sucked ass. The bully? Lisa Ling. When her sister was captured and was being held in North Korea and she had that tearful message for her release, I thought for just a brief moment maybe she feels just a bit of the pain she caused me for two years. Bitter? A little...

Yeah. The difficulty was compounded because she was pretty and popular, while I was neither, and there was no refuge for me from her constant harassment. She was even elected class president our 8th grade year which was, in my view, terrible.

I'm 28 and I can confirm this. The people who were mean spirited and dicks in general tend be the ones who look like they're 45 at the age of 25, run down by a life that treated their self-entitled egos to harsh doses of reality.

This is less of a "bully got justice" story and more of a "nice person gets what they deserve" story. There was this girl in high school who I was sort-of friends with (I was in the nerd group and taking lots of AP and college prep courses, while she was in the more basic courses, so we really only saw each other occasionally). She got picked on by a lot of the "cool" kids AND she had a pretty crappy home life too (by senior year I think her shitty parents had either kicked her out or she had decided to leave them). Once I went to college I lost track of her. She friended me on FB a few years ago. By now all the "cool" kids that picked on her are fat, saddled with kids, living in the same crap town that we all grew up in, with boring jobs. Which may be what they wanted in life, but I'll admit that to me their lives seem pretty lame. She, on the other hand, is living it up in NYC, making fabulous art (she does glassblowing, metalwork, photography and film, and has even worked with some famous actors - most famous would be the Dexter guy), has tons of awesome artsy buddies, and is having the time of her life. She totally deserves it.
TL;DR: Picked-on loner goes on to fabulous NYC artsy life while bullies get fat, have kids, and stay in crappy hometown.

One of the earliest memories I have was while I was still a toddler in that little walker thingy on wheels. Well anyways, my sister had this stupid smurf car that I hated and she loved to "drive" it all over my toddler body. Since she was older than me she pretty much could do whatever she wanted and I couldn't fight back. I only remember this smurf car molestation happening once or twice but my family swears it was the funniest thing (I made funny faces apparently).

Fast forward to today. My sis has four young daughters who all adore their uncle. This is because I always buy them musical toys, pop music cd's, and/or candy/ice cream/sugar. I know my sister doesn't like it when I buy them that stuff but there's nothing she can do about it and I think it's just the funniest thing to see them annoy the heck out of their mother.

I was very nearly the recipient of a massive beating due to some delayed karma.

Back in 4th grade I just started at a new school and was scrambling to make friends as soon as possible. To do this I took the path of least resistance. I tormented this poor kid who had no friends and was already being picked on. It was a very shameful decision, but it did get me into the clique. I would spend hours alternating between calling him "turkey Burk" and "slowy Lowey"

Fast forward twelve years later. Im at a party and I see the kid. Only he is less of a kid now, and more of a Mr Universe contestant. I had grown up substantially by then and decided an apology was in order.

I bee-lined it across the room, straight too him. I introduced myself and offered an apology and put my hand out for a handshake of ashamed regret. He stood staring at me for what felt like 15 seconds. He finally took my hand. He enveloped my entire hand, with assured firmness. The guy could have broken my hand without meaning to.
"kids can be cunts, man. I really appreciate your words."

Wow. He actually was a really cool guy.

Later that night me and a mate were walking home from the party when we were jumped by 4 guys. They started laying into us. My mate ran, 2 followed him. The other two were on top of me I was doing my best at protecting my face and ribs while they sunk the boots in. Then they stopped.
Burk had come out of nowhere! From behind he smashed both their heads together and started plowing into them. They ran.

He laughed when I made a remark on how lucky I was to apologise in time.

It's been roughly two years, for me. After my first love broke up with me, my self esteem took a huge hit. I felt insecure, like a terrible person, like I ruined everything good around me, etc. These insecurities manifested themselves in low self esteem with regards to my body image.

I recently started getting drunken text message from my ex. After a while they progressed to him trying to get me to come visit him. Once I agreed to drive the two hours it takes to go see him, but then he cancelled saying he would be embarrassed for his friends to know we had hung out because I was "such a terrible person." I stopped being nice and polite, but he continued to drunkenly text me. I should also mention, as it's relevant to the story, that my ex's life dream is to be on TV and be famous.

Then two weeks ago I was driving to a music festival up in Michigan when I decided to check my email. I found out I'd been one of 6 girls (out of an original 250 from my region) to move on to the next round of interviews for the casting of a new modeling show. I'd applied and sent in pictures of myself on a whim, I hadn't really expected anything to come of it since I'd only done some amateur modeling in middle school. I was absolutely besides myself with happiness. I felt confidence like I hadn't felt in two years. I felt damn good.

But it gets better. When I returned home I was shopping at a fancy local boutique when the owner approached me and asked me if I'd had any modeling experience. Then he asked me to come in for a photo shoot for their online catalogue they were launching. I went in for the photo shoot and it was amazing. I felt on top of the world. Shit like this does not happen to me.

I like to think that the world is paying me back tenfold in karma for having to deal with so many self esteem problems stemming from this one guy and this one break up. Also... Who's embarrassed now, asshole?

EDIT: Took out the name of the show.

2nd EDIT: Some people asked for a headshot, so here is the one I submitted.

Delete this comment. The NDA you signed when you auditioned likely prevents you from disclosing your participation. Trust me, I've worked in reality show casting, unless you know with 100% certainty that you can share your participation status, pull this down now.

This is quite the sidenote, but your username reminded me of a girl in high school yearsss ago that used a lavalamp as a dildo and sent pictures to everyone and their respective mothers. And for that mental travesty, I cannot thank you.

I was a really small freshman in high school (like 5'2") and looked like I was probably 12. I was always picked on for being the smallest. I transferred to a private school and fast forward 3 years and I go to a party with all the kids from my old school. I see one of the kids that always had it out for me because he was bigger at the time. Im now 6'1", obviously a lot bigger than before. So he talks some shit to me and I give it back. He shoves me and without even thinking I one punch ko'd this dbag in front of about 80 people. Everyone thought I was a fucking hero and then smoked some bowls with old friends. Great night.